Saint Mark the Evangelist Church, Norman, OK

1 Kings 19, 15-16, 19-21 + Psalm 16 + Galatians 5, 1, 13-25 + Luke 9, 51-62

What we call the beginning is often the end
And to make and end is to make a beginning.
The end is where we start from.
We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.

T.S. Elliot

Father Brian Buettner is either at the end or at the beginning. The poet, T.S. Elliot in those a amazing words might propose that it does not make any difference which one we call it as long as it is part of the exploration, the journey that ultimately brings us back to where we started, where as he suggests, we shall know the place for the first time.

Father, you have walked down that aisle many, many times. As a teenager you carried the cross, the candles, the thurable, and more recently I saw you carry the Gospel Book. Now today, you come empty handed as it should be. You have nothing to bring here but yourself; and the church that gathers here needs nothing more than what you bring. You have arrived where you started, and this is the wonderful mystery into which you rose up from the floor of Our Lady’s Cathedral yesterday.

Jesus is on his way to be “taken up”. That is the goal of his life. There is a plan, there is a strategy. His life is no series of unplanned or unexpected events. He knows where he is going, back to where he started, back to the Father. The only way is to Jerusalem, and in Luke’s Gospel, that is exactly where he started when at age 12 he sat in Jerusalem’s Temple with the elders. When Jesus arrives at Jerusalem this time, he will know the place for the first time. Now he will know what lamb will be sacrificed. Now he will know that Passover is not simply an event remembered from the past, but an experience to be lived in obedience to the Father’s will. Now he will know what Elijah’s words to Elisha meant: “Keep on doing what you do or start doing what God has called you to do, but you can’t do both; so make a decision.”

This is the problem with the Samaritans. They decided to keep on doing what they were doing, and there is no point in seeking revenge. They are like you and me, answerable for our own choices, and there is no way to know if it is the final choice. Then Luke gives us those three who unlike the Samaritans want to make a different choice. The uneasy thing about their story is that their choices are not between good and bad. It is a good thing to bury your father. It is a good thing to say farewell to your family when you leave. Those are good things to do; but maybe there is a better choice. We have no idea how they responded to what Jesus says to them. Luke does not tell us, because perhaps, they too are really you and me. Keep on doing what you’re doing. It might be your last chance, or when the choice is not between good and bad but rather between good and better, which one will you chose?

It is then about choices, and this celebration today is about one of them. It is not however a celebration of choice Father Brian is making today and every day of his life except that by sitting before us this morning he reminds us that there are choices for us to make. The choice is not just about vocation, but how one follows Jesus within the vocation that uses the gifts God has given us. Like you and me, that man is making a choice about beginning – the beginning of a life of exploration, an exploration that will take us all to the place where we began, into the loving heart of the Father. Our lives too are not just a series of accidents or unplanned events. For all of us there is a plan a strategy to get us to the place to where we started.

Our calling is to be “taken up”: to be taken up into the glory of God’s presence, back to the paradise, the garden, where in all innocence and in holiness without any barriers or shame we could stand in the presence of our God and enjoy God’s company. The trouble haunting those disciples was that they did not know where they were going. They wanted Jerusalem all right, but they wanted the Jerusalem of power and influence, splendor and glory: the stuff of its past. They wanted a King, but what they got was what they needed, a prophet.

Father Brian, our church still needs prophets but too often it wants kings. It is 45 years since my First Mass of Thanksgiving. This church of ours has changed a lot and will keep on changing; but it still needs prophets. The role and ministry of priest in the New Covenant is an integration of the Old Covenant’s priest and prophet. Sacrifice and Sanctification will be your mission as priest more often by your presence than by your words; but also, and even more often, you must be prophet who can stand in the midst of every tragedy, trial, and misery and point to the presence of God.

You must become as much John the Baptist as you become Jesus Christ among these people of God. You must be able to point and say, there is the Lamb of God in places and in faces where no one else would ever imagine the presence of God. The priest and the prophet announce the truth that God’s love will never go away. The priest and prophet is not a substitute for us. He tells us about ourselves and God. He acts out in his own person with all its human limits the fact that God will never desert any one of us.

The wonder that we celebrate today is that we know someone with the willingness and daring to put himself forward as a vulnerable example of God’s unyielding and undying love. The bread and wine we put before him and over which he prays calls us into the presence of Jesus who loved us beyond death; and no betrayal by family, friends, enemies or self can separate us from the bonds of His Spirit. The goodness of that God has found a voice again, and the voice will be his. Listen and follow. When it’s time to choose, choose the best so that at the end of our exploring, we will arrive at where we started and know the place for the first time.

St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church (Norman, OK)

Zachariah 12, 10-11; 12,1 + Psalm 63 + Galatians 3,26-29 + Luke 9, 18-24

To know what you are looking for you have to know what you need.

The other day I walked into the parish office. I stopped just inside the door, and I stood there trying to remember why I was standing there. I could not remember what I was looking for. So I went back to my office, and the door was locked. My keys were inside. When I realized what I needed, I knew what to look for, keys!

In the Gospel today, Luke raises a question about what the disciples are looking for. From their answer it would appear they were not looking for what they needed. While they may have wanted a Messiah who would restore the past, the power, the influence, presteige, and the glory of Israel past; this was not what they needed. This was not who Jesus was and it was not the will of the Father who provides what we need, not what we want.

The Jewish people at the time were persecuted, powerless, humiliated, and defeated by the power of Roman and its occupying army. What they needed was the presence of God in the midst of their suffering: a presence that would sustain them, comfort and console them; a presence that would assure them that they were not abandoned or alone. Once they acknowledged and embraced their need, they would find what they were looking for.

Not until those apostles suffered the collapse of all their dreams and silly ambitions, not until one of them betrayed the master, not until they experienced doubt, fear, and hopelessness did they find what they were looking for. Hope! Hope is what they needed not some grand all powerful Messiah who would do what they were unwilling and unable to do on their own or sweep down and clear up the mess they were in. Hope is what they found in Jesus Christ. Hope is what they received by the power of the Spirit, and the gifts to complete what was needed to experience the reign of God.

Many in this world are still running all round looking without any sense of what they need. They think they need a better job. They think they need a bigger house. They think they need to look better, drive a better car, or have more friends. In the meantime, they live empty and painful lives hopeless and confused, doubtful and fearful.

Right in the middle of all that is our God who provides what is needed: no escape from trouble and worry, from pain, sickness, suffering, and lonliness. The message coming from Luke today is a message of hope for anyone who needs it. The message is the image of a broken, betrayed, crucified messiah who, rather than sweeping it all away, picks up all the suffering and says: “Let’s go. Pick up your cross and we’ll go forward together. Come after me.”

It is not possible to take up the cross if you do not put something else down. It is not possible to live in the Kingdom of God and the the puny Kingdoms of this earth at the same time. It is not possible find life until you find death. It is not possible to know Christ Jesus until you know and embrace all the suffering of his passion. When you do, then  there is hope that does not disappoint. There is hope that lifts up those bowed down, and dries the tears of those who weep.

When he says: “Deny your self.” he means stop thinking all the time about what you want. Stop thinking that all creation revolves around the “Ego”, ME! Denail of self turns one toward the common good, the good of all. Self denial is a denial of self interest, of self-serving ideas, schemes, and idiologies that alway assume that what is good for me is good for you. No it isn’t. Before we keep on insisting that it is, we might do well to begin to examine the consequences of having our own way and pretending that it is the right way and the only way.

When Jesus looked around, he saw a need for hope. By denying himself, by taking up his cross (which was not in his self interest) he entered finally and completly into the helplessness of the human condition. In that obedient surrender, he gave us life by loosing it. He gave us his place as a child of God, and best of all he gave us hope.

While I did not preach at Saint Mark on this particular Sunday, the contrast Luke offers between two sinners was very profound to me while reflecting upon this Gospel during the week. Two sinners are presented not just the sinful woman, but the sinful Pharisee who sinned not by what he did, but by what he failed to do. As Luke proceeds with the story, only one is forgiven; the one whose love is great. No mention of forgiveness for this Pharisee who has slighted his guest by failing to observe the most common of courtesies. He almost seems to sit in judgement over a sinner who loves while excusing himself. Meanwhile, he does nothing. He neither apologizes nor shows any sign of love. He simply does nothing in the presence of guest who has not been cared for. Plenty to think about here, and more than enough to move us all to greater acts of love and repentance for the times we have both sat in judgement and done nothing in face of something wrong.

St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church (Norman, OK)

1 Kings 17, 17-24 + Psalm 30 + Galatians 1, 11-19 + Luke 7, 11-17

They are coming out of the villiage and Jesus is going in. They are going in opposite directions. Death meets life; and then what? Don’t you suppose that the death march turned around? Just that image itself tells the story Luke leaves us immediately before disciples of John come asking if Jesus is the one they are waiting for. From just this story, we know the answer.

Funeral processions are not the sort of gathering that would invite or attract anyone. Here in Oklahoma we have an fine old custom of pulling over, or stopping our cars when we come upon a funeral procession; but we don’t turn around and follow it. No one sees a funeral and joins the crowd unless they are part of the grieving family or friends. But it isn’t that way with Jesus. He should have ignored that funeral procession. In fact, he approached it at some risk, becasue he could have been defiled. He was running the risk of becoming unclean, but he is drawn to this woman. He sees her need. She never asks for anything. She never says a word. He is wounded by her pain. It is not the death of the young man that moves Jesus to act, but the plight of this woman who in that time and age just as well be dead herself when as a widow she looses her only son. This is really a funeral procession for two. With no man, she has no home, no identity, no future. We can see through and in this story how culture and society abandons a woman without a man. There is as much social critique here as there is miracle. The miracle and the story unmasks the social condition that turns people into the poor and the vunerable. That is a homily for another day.

Setting aside the awe and wonder of a miracle, we are left with unmistakable evidence of a God who goes after the vulnerable, the sad, the grieving, and helpless. Whether you are a mother whose only child has died, or a family who have lost everything in an Oklahoma spring storm, there is one unmistakable fact: God will be found there. I can’t help but be struck by the two parallel readings today in which the sons are returned to their mothers. It’s as though these children do not belong to death but they belong to the one who gives them life. So it is with us all. We belong not to this world, but to the one who gives us life. The work of Jesus is to lift us up, to call us from death to life, to turn us around and lead us back into the city, the new Jerusalem.

It is just a little over 11 years ago that I stood here for the first time and told you that after speaking with the other priests who had moved that time around, I was convinced that I had won, and I have never doubted it since then. It is not that Saint Mark Parish is better than the Cathedral, or St Thomas More, St Joseph in Union City, Mt St Mary High School or the Old Cathedral, all places I have served in the last 45 years. It is simply that it took me so long to get it right and understand and believe what the priesthood is all about and what it means to be the shepherd who teaches, leads, and sanctifies; who proclaims the Kingdom of God and stands at the sacred altar praying for the people who asssemble with him, giving thanks and glory to the God who calls us his own and reveales himself to us in so many ways. In truth, the parish of Saint Mark owes a lot to those other communities who taught me so much, tollerated and forgave my mistakes and immaturity. Laughed with me and at me, forgave me, and let me learn from their joys and sorrows how to be priest.

One day when riding in the car with my father I told him I thought I would be a priest, he said: “Be a Jesuit.” I said: “Why?” He said to me: “Because they’re the best.” I said, “What if I just become a parish priest and do the best I can.” He just looked at me and kept on driving. We never spoke of it again, but he was the first person in line for communion at the Mass of my Ordination. I had never seen him take communion before.

As some of you know, one moment in Salvatin History, the Annunciation, holds my imagination more than any other. That young woman in Nazareth said “Yes” to God and what she understood was God’s plan and will for her life. Because she said “Yes” we are here today, and this world is full of hope becasue our lives are full of faith. She knew when to say “Yes” and I think she knew when to say “No.” How else could she have been free from sin?

Forty-five years ago, I said, “Yes” and then laid down on the floor in the old church of Saint John the Baptist in Edmond, Oklahoma while the assembly sang the Litany of the Saints. An outrageous April thunderstorm was taking place which my classmates, who were present, considered to be a sign from God. At the end of the litany, Charlie Meiser, the master of ceremonies said: “Rise” just like Jesus said in the Gospel today.

I still want to say “Yes” to God. Forty-five years ago, I had no clue about what was ahead of me, where I would live, what my life would be like, and what was going to happen. I feel the same way right now. I have no clue about what lies ahead, what God wants, or what the rest of my life will be about. In April 1968 I felt as though the seminary had done the best it could to get me ready. I did not have a lot of confidence. I just had lot of hope. Now in June of 2013 I feel as though you have done the best you can to get me ready for whatever is next. I have no more confidence now than I did then, but I have a lot more hope.

Look at these young men and women. For the past 11 years, they and others who could not be here today have made the journey down that aisle with cross, candles, incense, and the Gospel Book. You, young people, are the very heart and the very reason for this parish, for this church, and for my life. You are the very reason for Jesus Christ, His birth, His life, His death and His Resurrection. We are here for one reason: to pass on to you what we have received from those who have gone before us. We want to pass on to you our love for Jesus Christ, His Word, and the Sacrament of His Body and Blood. I want to tell you one more time: don’t you dare betray or abandon what your parents and their parents have given you. It is the best, and leaving it for anything less is foolish. Don’t be going out of the village when Christ is going in. I want you to remember one thing from our time together. Remember that what he said to those apostles he still says to you: “As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”

There are a couple of more weeks for us to gather here before I get some rest and continue deciding when to say “Yes” and when to say “No.” It seems odd to be having this joyful celebration of Thanksgiving when I am still gong to hang around till the end of the month; yet it does give me time and more occasions to say Thank you again and again and again. No matter where any of us are in the months and years to come, let’s keep walking down an aisle somewhere toward an altar where in the mystery of God’s providence we shall always be one in Communion, and for as long as we can, keep remembering one another gratefully and prayerfully.

St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church (Norman, OK)

Genesis 14, 18-20 + Psalm 110 + 1 Corinthians 11, 23-26 + Luke 9, 11-17

They say: “Send them away.”
He says: “Feed them yourselves.”
With that, the great conflict begins: the conflict between; “There’s not enough” and “There’s more than enough.” Where we stand in this conflict will make all the difference when the master comes and calls for an accounting of what we have done with the gifts entrusted to us for awhile.

The resolution of that conflict within us Catholics should not be too difficult if and when we finally deeply understand, believe, and act like the Eucharistic people we have been invited to become. In the plan and wisdom of God revealed for us through Jesus Christ, we are chosen and called into a profound union with Jesus Christ. Through the gift of himself in bread and wine, two things happen because this is communion, not just food. Other food, when eaten, becomes a part of our body and that’s all. We eat a pear and it becomes part of us. That’s all. We do not become a pear. Some may observe that I am beginning to look like one, but I can assure you. It’s not happening!

When we consume the Body and Blood of Christ something more happens. In our usual way of thinking it’s always about us, we like to believe that Christ enters into our flesh and blood and into our being which is all very true; but that is only half of the mystery. Around this altar of the Eucharist, we remember his dying, we celebdrate his life and we enter into the mystery of God’s love. Those eat His flesh and drink His blood are assimilated into Jesus and become a part of him. What is important to understand, accept, and believe, you see, is the reverse of my example with the pear. This is the difference between taking communion and becoming communion. We have been stuck far too long in the idea that communion is something we get, take, or for that matter receive. It is way more than that, and failing to grasp that truth has left us profoundly impoverished, hungry, and helpless. As a consequence this wonderful, beautiful, world that should reflect the face of its creator everywhere looks broken, hungry, sad, and empty even in places where there is more than enough to eat.

We cannot take for granted so profound a union. It is more than Christ in us, we in communion are in Christ. But the fact is, we have become a lot like the Israelites in the desert who grew weary of the manna and quail and started longing for the food they had in Egypt. Having failed to cultivate a hunger in our hearts and souls, a hunger that comes from the need for communion, a hunger prompted by prayer and sacrifice, we settle for pizza and beer, a coke and a hamburger only to be hungry again a few hours later. In the meantime, having failed to enter into communion, an overweight nation is caught in the conflit over sending them away or feedng them.

Sometime in the fifth century the Patriarch of Alexandria, Cyril, spoke these words in a homily: “Come then let us hasten to the mystical supper. This day Christ receives us as his guests. This day Christ waits upon us….The Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world is slain…The life-giving chalice is mingled. God the Word incarnate enterains us. Wisdom, who has built herself a house, distributes his body and her bread and gives us his blood as wine to drink. Life bestows itself on mortals as food and drink. You have taseted the fruits of disobedience. Taste now the food of obedience. Eat of me who is life: Eat of life which never ends.”

The whole church this day, with Francis, the Bishop of Rome and successor of Peter, is at prayer at this hour and everytime we assemble around this altar; so that we may become more and more the the very Christ we consume, so that finally having been gathered in communion and grafted onto this vine, no one will be hungry, no one will go away thirsty from this well of divine life, and all creation where ever we are found will in glory reflect the creator whose life is our privilege to share and whose gifts bring the duty to give. The Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ is the Church in Communion from which no one should be sent away.

St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church (Norman, OK)

Proverbs 8, 22-31 + Psalm 8 + Romans 5, 1-5 + John 16, 12-15

God is good! (All the time!) Say that again like you mean it!
Now this has been quite a week to remember. I think today it is important to pick out what it is we want to remember and how we want to remember it because we are a lot like the disciples of Jesus on those days after his death clinging desperately to the shreds of their hope, shaken by the things that have happened and wondering what it all means.

Since this week has been so out of the ordinary, so shall this homily be a bit out of the ordinary because: God is good! (all the time). Pick up your hymnal please and stand up. Open that hymnal to page number XXX. In light of the week we have just passed in central Oklahoma, there is only one response possible from people of faith to the power of this disaster. It is the greater power of faith. (Sing: My life goes on in endless song above earth’s lamentations, I hear the real though far off hymn that hails the new creation. No storm can shake my inmost calm while to that rock I’m clinging. Since love is Lord if heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing.)

Storms, wind, and rain are a part of life just like diseases and accidents. We live in a world full of dangers and risk, and it is fair and perhaps important to ask where is God in this? You can’t blame God for a tornado if you don’t give God credit for a teacher who shields a child with her own body or a man who crawls under a collapsing wall to pull a stranger to safety. We see the most awesome people and hear stories of selflessness and sacrifice. Then we see looters and theives snatching up the last bits of precious memories from people who now have nothing left. We are a people of dignity and depravity. Times like these bring out the best and the worst of our nature, and the storms of last Sunady and Monday blew away more than roofs and entire homes. They blew away the mask from the nature of human kind.

What we can see, learn, and understand this week is not the power of Mother Nature, but the truth of human nature. When the storms of life blow in, our true nature is revealed. The storms of life, all of them remind us of what is important again. No one who survived last Sunday and Monday has been seen yelling about the loss of their 50” flat screen TV or their golf clubs. We mourn for people who were lost and rejoice for people who are found. That is who we are and what we are as children of God and disciples of God’s Son: a people who can morun for the right reasons and rejoice becasue God is Good!

Something about people huddled in a storm cellar fearful and anxious keeps reminding me of a crowd of people huddled in an upper room fearful and anxious, uncertain about what was happening outside and what the next day was going to be like. But they had been told and they believed that they would be robed in glory and experience power from on high. Confused about what that glory would look like, all they could remember was the sight of the Son of Man dirty, bloody, and broken hanging on a cross. What kind of glory was that? Yet, they held to their hope, remained together, encouraged one another, and clung to the rock of their faith, and somehow, slowly for some and in an instant for others, that broken, bloody, friend who loved them all rose up robed in glory.

His victory is the hope we share. His glory is ours rising above the storms of life. His strength is what we find in our unity as a family in faith. His joy is what we know when we see one another again after one more storm of life fully aware that there will be more storms again, and we shall keep on singing.

This feast of the Holy Trinity is a really good day to remember what we just heard Paul proclaim to the Romans: “Affliction produces endurance, and endurance proven character, and proven character, hope, and hope does not disappoint, becasue the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.”

As John’s Gospel assures us: God will take from Christ what is his and declare it us. With that good news, we can keep on singing because we know and we believe that God is Good. ALL THE TIME!

St. Mark the Evangelist Catholic Church (Norman, OK)

Acts of the Apostles 2, 1-11 + Psalm 104 + Romans 8, 8-17 + John 14, 15-16; 23-26

All the Old Testament signs of God’s presence are there: a thundering noise like the one heard at Sinai; a whirlwind like the one from which God spoke to Job; flames of fire like Moses saw at Mount Horeb, and then there is that breath bringing them back. Their leader, teacher, and friend is gone; and with him all their hopes and dreams, vision and expectations about what could be. Dead is their courage and joy. The power that called Lazarus to life, gave sight to the blind, lifted the lame, sought the lost, included those left out of life, and spoke of peace has gone. Then comes that noise, the wind, the fire, and his breath was suddenly in them, in that room, and then everywhere they went.

As always it is easy to sit with the story of Pentecost and look backward thinking as though it was something that happened on the 50th day after the resurrection, something that happened to a group of followers sitting around and waiting for something because he told them to. If that is the best we can do with this Gospel, we should have all stayed home.

This is not a story from the past. This is a revelation of the church. It is our belief and our understanding of who we are and what we are. It speaks best and maybe only to people who have broken hearts, who have been blind to the presence of Christ in others, who have been shamefully ambitious, selfish, and people who have experienced the death of hope or the death of someone they relied on, loved, and trusted. That is who was in that room, and that is the people in this room.

Because we are here and because of God’s promise, those who remain here will have life breathed into them. The key to this messsage, the key that unlocks it’s power and revelation is that word and that experience of remaining. It is the unity. It is the communion. It is the bond of faith and hope that makes a dwelling place for the Spirit. Like those people in John’s gospel, we are in another period of the Lord’s absence: the time between the Lord’s Ascension and his final coming in glory. During this time, we remain as he asked, and while we remain the Holy Spirit is our advocate, comforter, ally, guide, and inspiration. This is no time for fear, disappointment, or sadness. We are not a people without hope and a vision of what is to come. The Spirit he has sent is our advisor in times of decision and our comfort in times of illness and tragedy. The Spirit he has sent is our guide leading us to forgiveness, justice, love and peace. The Spirit is fuel that feeds the fire of our passion for service, the salve that heals. The Spirit is the reason for victorious living rather than defeated life.

Yet, the times in which we live are spirit starved times. Impatient and unwilling to remain too many have gone off on their own and rather than wait for the glory of God’s Kingdom to be revealed. They are satisfied, but only for a moment, with the glory of a passing world. Everywhere we see the unity for which Christ prayed collapsing into the fog of individualism and privitized lives. “One nation under God” has become “whoever has the most wins.” Ideological warfare is breaking us into factions. Remaining in love is too hard. It’s easier to quit rather than work at healing and forgiving. “On demand” entertainment has driven us further apart even in our leasure. Families and friends who once sat together to watch a game or some favorite show now stare at screeens alone watching “on demand”. The technology even affects us as a church. Mass “on demand”, Mass when I want it, or when it fits into my schedule arranged around the things that really matter means no parish unity, identity or loyalty. It’s all private, and it’s all mine.

In John’s Gospel today, Christ breathes on those who remained in that room infusing them with his Spirit. He unleashes in them the power of the Spirit, who alone can bring peace and joy in the wake of terrifying woundedness. He asks them to open themselves to the gift of the Spirit that allows them to receive and give forgiveness which is the only thing that can clear the air from the smoke of hatred and violence so that all can breathe in peace for which we long and which the risen One desires to give. Let me suggest to you that this breath means an intimacy with God that is as close as our every breath taken deeply into our lungs thousands of times a day. Just as breath must be exhaled, and cannot be kept within, so to does the Spirit’s power direct us outward to mission, exuding the love, peace, and forgiveness we have inhaled from the Living One.

MAY 12, 2013 at Saint Mark Catholic Church in Norman, OK

Acts of the Apostles 1, 1-11 + Psalm 47 + Hebrews 9: 24-28; 10, 19-23- + Luke 24, 46-53

Probably set up by various artists who painted their vision of the Ascension, I would wonder about this scene so simply described as “he parted from them and was taken up to heaven.” I’m not sure why that line got my attention except that I’m a “visual” person and that sort of thing gets my imagination going. When my brain catches up to my imagination, I realize that there is a line just a little earlier that is a lot more interesting: “but stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

“Clothed with power from on high!” Now there is something to think about: power. We like it. We use. We abuse it. We encourage it. We want it. It is good when we have it. It is bad when someone else has more. From our earliest days as children we fantasize about power. There are, after all, Power Rangers, Superman, Spiderman, Iron Man 1, 2, and now 3.

Perhaps this fascination with power begins early because we are so powerless. Consequently power becomes all consuming. Trouble comes because we never seem to grow up. About the time we get finished with the action figures, we discover another power that can be physical, political, social, or economic all leading us around in circles manipulating, using, abusing, oppressing those who do not have as much. Sometimes we use our power to liberate others, but by the time we are finished liberating them they begin to wonder if it was worth it when they look at the death and devastation their liberation cost. Meanwhile I don’t think there is much evidence that we have begun to  discover much less explore what it means to be “clothed with power from on high.”

I watch our young people all the time, and I wonder all that time what we are teaching them about power; what kind of power we are handing on to them, and how are we teaching them to use that power. If you have not begun to wonder about that, I wish you would. I am going to leave you in a little while, and I would like to leave you wondering about a few things, thinking seriously and deeply about them, and asking more questions. I do not want to leave you smug and confident thinking you have all the answers.

In studying this text, I came across a book entitled: “Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey” by Maya Angelou telling the story of her grandmother who raised her in the little town of Stamps, Arkansas. Maya describes her grandmother as “a tall cinnamon-colored woman with a deep, soft voice,” whose difficult life caused her to rely utterly on the power of God. Get that: “whose difficult life caused her to rely utterly on the power of God. Difficult life? Look at us! I know some of you have difficult days; but most of us don’t have a clue about difficult days. I open the refrigerator to figure out what to eat, not whether or not there is anything to eat. I open my closet to select what to wear, not see if there is anything to wear. So, lacking difficult days, we don’t much rely on the power of God, we would rather rely on our own power: political, economic, social, or military.

Angelou envisioned her Mama “standing thousands of feet up in the air on nothing visible,” when she would draw herself up to her full six feet, clasp her hands behind her back, look up into a distant sky, and declare, “I will step out on the word of God.” “Immediately,” Angelou recalls, “I could see her flung into space, moons at her feet and stars at her head, comets swirling around her. Naturally it wasn’t difficult for me to have faith. I grew up knowing that the word of God has power.” Don’t you wonder if any of our children grow up thinking that the Word of God has power?

So here we are with images of Jesus being “taken up” into the sky after spending a life time stepping out on the word of God. The disciples want to know if now is the time he will restore the kingdom to Israel.  Jesus does not answer their questions, but points to the power of the Holy Spirit with which they will be clothed.

They stand there looking up and see nothing. Then they look at each other clothed with the power from on high to turn away from anything that stands between them and the divine one who calls them to glory. Their work is to teach others that same trust in the power of the word to uphold them, fill them with joy, and lead them to glory. This is power; the Word of God. This is the future. This is the way peace, and our only hope for glory and for joy.

MAY 5, 2013 at Saint Mark Catholic Church in Norman, OK

Acts of the Apostles 15, 1-2, 22-29 + Psalm 67 + Revelation 21, 10-14, 22-23- + John 14, 23-29

Pease was a dangerous idea and goal for the early Christians living in the Roman Empire. It still is, even though the Roman Empire is gone, and lots of other Empires with and after it. There was a time called the “Pax Romana”; the Roman Peace; but that kind of peace was maintained by occupational forces that raped, looted, taxed, and enslaved all opposition. It was sustained by crucifying rebels, and worshiping Roman gods. That kind of peace was not a good fit for the gift of Christ and mission of his disciples. Those disciples followed a man who preached that peace came from healing, forgiving, and serving others especially those in need and marginalized by others. To make it worse, these followers worshiped a God who opposed violence: a God whose Son said: “Put up your sword. Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.”

Times change, but it seems that empires do not, but neither does the heart and the soul of those who follow Jesus of Nazareth. Impatience with diplomacy is all to obvious. Readiness to choose military solutions to complex global problems is everywhere. Those who advocate the wisdom of talk and patience are looked upon as weak, indecisive, or naive. From playgrounds to neighborhoods, from Board Rooms to Bedrooms many seek peace by ignoring conflict, and some think they can have peace by shouting down people who disagree with them. It’s an odd kind of peace. Just as odd as the Pax Romana was an odd and very temporary kind of peace that was not peace at all.

More than the absence of overt conflict, the peace that Christ proclaims, the peace that binds together and motivates the Christian community is a living relationship rooted in love and the passionate desire for the good of all resting upon justice, respect, forgiveness, and patience. The willingness, readiness, and desire for true justice is the first step to Peace. This justice has nothing to do with punishment or revenge. In fact, there is little liklihood of justice being done when any hint of anger or revenge or desire to punish is involved. The justice modeled by Jesus and motivating his disciples is never about rights. It is always about the duty that comes from having rights. The true Christian understanding of Justice is not some abstract thing concerned with weighing arguments and enforcing legislative decisions. It is action directed toward the well-being of the other and the common good. It is never about power. It is always about service.

The exercise of Justice rests upon respect, a respect that begins with respect for life itself and the sourse of all life. It is a respect that sees in every human face the face of God. When this virtue takes hold of us, there is no longer an enemy there is only someone to love, for in doing so, as I said last week, we come to love God and know God’s love for us which is the consequence of our love for one another.For me after 45 years of listening to this Gospel and digging deeper and deeper into it, I am beginning to realize that this Peace which Jesus would leave us begins to blossom when we respond rather than react, when we are willing to listen rather than talk, when we choose to whisper rather than shout, when we are willing to wait and to hope, to forgive and forget, to laugh at ourselves and dry the tears of another, and most of all to wait and to watch, to welcome without fear, and to wonder in awe at the diversity and beauty of God’s creation. As we begin to do so, I think we are suddenly going to find ourselves back where we started in paradise, in the Kingdom of God, a heavenly peace.

April 28, 2013 at Saint Mark Catholic Church in Norman, OK

Acts of the Apostles 13, 26-33 + Psalm 145 + Revelation 21, 1-5 + John 13, 31-35

There is one thing important to understand in these verses from John’s Gospel that escapes the quick reader and the shallow interpretation. Love is not just the commandment. It is the result of keeping the commandment.  In other words, you get what you give. Or, you can’t have love until you give love. What Jesus reveals to us by his life and what John passes on to us in his account of the life of Jesus is that there is only one source of love; God. Anything else is a cheap imitation, and like all other cheap imitations, it will not hold up to the test of time and trial.

You buy a cheap imitation watch, and it will fall apart before you know it. You buy the real thing, and it will long outlast your expectations. Any love that does not in some way connect us to God’s love is suspicious and doubtful. 

Over 45 years I’ve sat with countless engaged couples with starry eyes gazing with affection upon each other. I’ve seen teen agers helplessly clinging to another totally swept away by the power of emotion and infatuation convinced that they were captured by love and ready surrender every shred of human dignity to prove it. And so, every time I get the chance I ask them, “Has this experience led you closer to God or revealed anything of God to you?” When they say, “Yes” and I see them in prayer and more faithful to the church, I suspect that they truly have experienced love. When a relationship leads someone away from God, away from the community of faith, away from goodness and leads them to sin, it is a fraud. It is a cheap imitation of love. When they say, “No” I know It isn’t going to last. It is not going to hold up to the test of time or the test of pain, loss, suffering, or sacrifice.

Injustice and violence leave deep scars on the soul that justice itself cannot heal. People who seek and demand the death penalty believing that it will bring justice and heal the pain when they have suffered at the hands of some evildoer know that revenge heals nothing. Justice can create order and punish those who do wrong, but justice alone cannot restore a soul to love. Only love can heal the wounds of injustice. Paul, Barnabas, and those early Christians discovered in the midst of their hardships was that the only way to love is to experience it.

Sin and evil are irrational. Poverty and Violence make angry people, and we all know from our own irratonal moments that anger makes us do crazy things. This world is full of poverty and violence, and consequently there are angry people everywhere doing crazy things. Sin and evil leave behind them hatred, anger, and a desire for revenge. We are helpless in the face of this unless we grasp truth of this Gospel and reach deeply into the wisdom of Jesus Christ. Only love in the flesh, Jesus Christ can “wipe away every tear from their eyes.” We are the presence and the flesh of that Christ today.

Love is the very core of God’s very being. Love is the heart of Christ’s incarnation. Love is the comfort of the Holy Spirit and the only purpose of Christian life for disciples of Jesus.

When the Book of Revelation says: “Behold, God’s dwelling is with the human race.” The power of evil, anger, and the insanity of violence is broken. The new order God has established is love, and that is the only tool with which we may combat the old order. Revenge and violence are useless. They only produce more of the same. When love motivates us to change what is unjust, and love lifts people from the helplessness of poverty restoring their dignity, the insane behavior of those driven mad by their anger will be overcome. We shall not possess and know God’s love until we have begun to love one another without condtions or exclusions since that is the way of God’s love. Then all things will be made new.